👊🏽 Special Edition: Ganas and I invested in Shappi!
This is a special edition of Lolita's Newsletter, a bi-weekly newsletter of curated actionable insights and resources for underestimated founders, funders, and friends.
Karla Valdivieso (Shappi) and me
Hi all! I’m so excited to share with you that Ganas Ventures and I joined the Shappi family and so can you!
🏃🏽♀️💨 Catch up.
This March, we launched Ganas Ventures. Since then, we made our first investment into Latitud’s seed round co-led by a16z/NFX, our second investment into Around led by LEAP, and have raised +$4M out of our $10M target from unicorn founders, and LPs and VC thought leaders. And Ganas and I were featured on the Nasdaq Tower for our leadership in equity within the startup-VC ecosystem! Now, we’re excited to announce our third investment into Shappi!
Ganas Ventures and I have invested in Shappi, alongside lead investors Sixers Innovation Labs, and participating funds Concrete Rose, Sweater Ventures, and international logistic pros, like Brickyard!
💰 Founders, apply for investment here. 👊🏽 LPs, apply to invest in Ganas here.
🦄👊🏽 Shappi investment TL;DR.
At Ganas we back founders that have ganas and a big vision to address big problems in growing markets via a go-to-community strategy. And Shappi more than fits the bill. There’s a lot to love about them. Shappi…
is a moonshot in travelogistics
has a visionary founder with market-startup-fit
addresses an underestimated, large, and growing market
is loved by their customers with a 91 NPS score
has a solid cap table to help them expand in LATAM
Shappi. Shappi empowers Latin American consumers to obtain US products in a faster, cheaper, and more reliable way by connecting them to Verified Travelers returning from the U.S. and renting the traveler's luggage space. Products (e.g. consumer electronics, apparel, etc.) are shipped directly to the Traveler and then given to a Shappi community member for last-mile delivery once the Traveler is in-country.
Team. Talk about founder-market-startup fit. Shappi’s founder and CEO, Karla Valdivieso, is a Latina entrepreneur with a proven track record of success and extraordinary achievements in building companies from simple ideas to sustainable businesses, such as KOMLEP and Product Factory. And, for more than 10 years, Karla has been heavily involved in the startup ecosystem in Latin America and has been focused on the future of logistics via emerging and hot markets, like Colombia and Argentina. As an individual who has lived between Ecuador and the United States, Karla has personally faced the struggle of international logistics and has unique insight to the shopping and logistics behaviors of LatAm residents. For this very reason, Karla has made it her mission to make LatAm a better place by creating new economies specifically targeted to improve international logistics. The rest of the Shappi team is quite impressive as well, coming from tech and ecommerce VC-backed startups like Tul and PedidosYa (Acquired by Delivery Hero) and having international business experience.
Traction. Since their launch in October 2021, Shappi managed to build a business that is working towards $2M GMV and ~$1MARR by the end of 2022, is servicing thousands of customers, has processed +10K deliveries, and is growing at a MoM rate.
Market. Shappi is disrupting a $52B+ LATAM cross-border logistics industry. There are literally over 600M Latin Americans who want US products but face challenges accessing them (e.g., relying on family, overpriced resellers, unreliable couriers). Between that and with e-commerce sales on the rise, couriers do not have the capacity or network to deliver products due to infrastructure and technological inefficiencies quickly. This has presented a significant opportunity for Shappi to focus on the ‘last mile’ for international delivery. Fun fact: according to a report by Zion Research, the total value of all global cross-border ecommerce hit $562.1 billion in 2018, and is expected to reach over $4 trillion by 2027 – increasing at a CAGR (compound annual growth rate) of 27.4%.
Catalyzing the future of work. Shappi’s vision is to be the fastest solution offering a wow experience to people, by providing the best international delivery service while delivering happiness to people everywhere. They’re just getting started.
Community-driven. Shappi believes that building a community for both their consumers & travelers is essential. Shappi empowers Latin American consumers to obtain the delivery of their U.S. products in a faster, more affordable, and more reliable way by connecting them to Verified Travelers. Shappi is committed to building a network of verified travelers & making it easier for consumers to obtain products from the U.S. Bonus: they are unlocking economic opportunities for US and Latin Americans, in community.
Roadmap. Shappi is building the biggest ‘Travelogistic’ solution, Shappi 3.0 will be launched in Q4, more international services will be added, giving more flexibility to consumers in Latin America when purchasing goods in stores abroad.
😇🚀 You can also join the Shappi family.
If you're as excited about Shappi as I am, join the Shappi family as a shopper or traveler and become an investor as a Ganas LP.
✨ Lolita Taub, GP at Ganas Ventures | twitter | luma
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Disclaimer: Ganas Ventures is a 506c fund that allows us to publicly solicit for our raise. All are welcome to apply to become an LP; however commitments into Ganas Ventures will only be accepted from accredited investors.